


Rites and Passage

by elegantanagram (Lir)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Body Horror, Bonding, Budding Love, Developing Relationship, F/F, POV Third Person, Protectiveness, Quest Plot, Sharing, Subtle Relationship Negotiations, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000, Xenophilia, of a remarkably non-sexual nature mostly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 20:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1360690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/elegantanagram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jade loves her grandfather more than life and breath, for showing her so many fantastic things, and for taking her to places so magnificent other people could only dream of them. When he departs across the globe without her, it turns out to be those fantastical creatures that offer her the greatest chance of again finding him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rites and Passage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ityellsback](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ityellsback/gifts).



> I got excited about this prompt specifically for the amazing xenoporn possibilities. The story got away from me, and did not end up going anywhere near in that direction. Just know, somewhere along this trajectory, Jade and Nepeta and Feferi do have some kind of mindblowing xeno threesome. Actually shown: Jade and Nepeta and Feferi having a remarkably chaste budding relationship and family feels.

-

The boat pulls into the island's little makeshift harbor even as the sailors on board rush to and fro, ropes in their arms as they tie down its moorings. The instant one of them throws down the gangplank, Jade is trotting down it, her arms swung wide for balance. She leaps the final distance to the grassy bank, one hand going to her head to steady the wide-brimmed hat atop it, the other waving frantically back at everyone still on the ship. Her grin is wide and white, bright against the warm nut brown of her dimpled cheeks. 

"Thanks for the ride!" she calls back, arm still waving a vigorous goodbye. "Oh, I almost forgot. This is Pietro's hat!"

She starts to whip the hat off her head, arm poised to frisbee it onto the deck, but the men on the boat all laugh and wave her down, tell her to keep it. It's a gift; it's something to keep the sun from her eyes as she treks through the jungle. She tries to frown, crossing her arms over her chest, but in the end she only manages to grin all the wider. Pulling the brim lower over her face, she turns on her heel with a final wave. Adventure awaits!

There isn't even a town built up around the docks. There's only the rough semicircle hewn out of the land to cradle boats, and a few thick wooden posts driven into the bank where those boats can be moored. Beyond that, there's only the narrow, beaten path leading up toward the trees. 

The island's name is Sun-Touches-Down, or at least that's the designation it had in Jade's musty old books. It was in her grandfather's notes, and that's why she's come. 

If it takes her to the ends of the earth and back, Jade Harley will find her grandfather. 

-

From the shore, the jungle on the island looks thick and impenetrable. Walking through it, though, there is far less underbrush than Jade would have expected. The tree branches overhead are thin, and the sun manages to beat down incessantly even through the leaves. She is made very grateful for her hat's protection. 

She has water in her pack, and jerky, and cloth-wrapped bundles of dried fruits and nuts. She knows how to forage, and how to find fresh water. More important than that, she has hand-drawn maps stowed away, their surfaces scrawled all over with her grandfather's tiny, precise script. She knows just where to turn off from the path to find the island's largest village, but she keeps on walking.

None of the clues she wants are going to be found in town. 

When Jade was younger, she followed her grandfather around the world. She gained her sea legs before she learned to read, saw breathtaking sights the likes of which her teachers could only believe she'd made up when she came back home. She knew how to navigate by the stars, how to barter wisely, and how to haggle when she was down to her last two coins and still needed supplies for the week. She could say hello in fifteen different languages. 

She loved her grandfather more than life and breath, for showing her so many fantastic things, and for taking her to places so magnificent other people could only dream of them. 

And then, two years ago, her grandfather had set off on another world adventure, alone and without a word. He left Jade alone with all the rooms in his sprawling country house, filled with all of his travel books and notes. Pouring through them, reading about the wondrous places he'd been and the distant locations he had yet to visit, Jade had been certain it was a challenge. He'd given her all the tools to travel; now it's up to her to catch him. 

She hikes through midday and right into the afternoon, making headway even through the worst of the jungle heat. She crosses streams twice, and tiptoes over the trails of several small animals. Her rations are slim and will hold up only so long without supplement; as the day progresses, she eagerly turns her attention to tracking. She doesn't know what strange fauna she might find here; simply making a meal is exciting and novel. 

The tracks she follows lead through dense patches of underbrush and under open patches of sky, doubling back and then bounding forward again. She's off the designated path, has been for a while, but that's no concern. She thrusts through a thick fall of ferns, bursts into a sunny, unguarded clearing. She's so intent, she almost doesn't hear the hiss coming from right between the trees. 

She bends down, just in time to be barreled clean over. The sky wheels over her, clean and brilliant blue, and then she's on her back, gasping with the force of her landing. There's a weight on her chest, claws digging into her shoulders. The face thrust in hers registers only as luminous yellow eyes, eyes so huge and bright they flood her entire field of vision. 

"Trespasser," she hears hissed into her ear, hot breath wafting across her neck. 

She tries to remember the etiquette for this, heart hammering in her chest, but the fluffy tailtip lashing across her thighs proves to be the strangest, most maddening distraction. 

"I'm sorry," she says, not quite managing to sound contrite. 

"Apawlogies," the voice sniffs, disdaining. It's low and with a bit of a rasp to it but – Jade thinks – somehow oddly feminine. There's a certain playfulness, almost, that makes the words come as less of a threat. "Who asked you fur apawlogies?" 

"Was that," Jade starts. "Did you just make a pun?" 

She gasps, when the weight of the other girl's haunches suddenly drops to rest heavily against her gut. "Maybe I did, little prey-girl. But is it in your best interests to be asking?"

"I think you did!" Jade insists, never one to be deterred by unfavorable circumstances. 

"The benevolent lioness, in her great wisdom, does not choose to dignify the prey-girl's words with a response," her captor says, as she lifts one paw from Jade's shoulder. She examines it before her face in an exaggerated show of disinterest. 

It gives Jade a moment to really look at her, now that she's of a mind to absorb details. The girl's hand is very much a paw, gray-furred and with wicked black claws curving from each digit. Her face is feral and pointed, her huge, slitted yellow eyes made only more unnatural by how human they do still look. A riot of black hair frames her face like a dandelion puff, the gray ears atop her head flicking towards Jade even as she pretends to ignore her. The way her black lips curl is almost a smile, though Jade thinks they might always set that way. 

"I think you should let me up, if you're not going to do anything besides sit there and look at your hands!" Jade proposes. "It's not like I trespassed on your territory on purpose." 

"There were markers all around!" her captor says, in despairing disbelief. There's suspicion in her voice but, to Jade's ear, distinctly less malice. "I saw you looking for them, behind every bush and tree. The clever lioness thinks the prey-girl should at least make sure her lies are less transparent."

"I was looking for signs of small animals," Jade explains. "I was just hunting, and I didn't see anything that I thought was telling me to keep away! And my name isn't 'prey-girl,' it's Jade. What's yours?" 

The girl pinning her startles, pupils tightening in a way Jade thinks means "surprise," before she leans all the way in towards Jade's face. Her breath is still hot, wafting over Jade's cheeks and her neck, in counterpoint to the cold pinprick where the lion-girl's nose presses close. Jade can feel the soft brush of lightly-furred cheeks against her skin. She realizes she's being sniffed, insistently. 

"I just want to know what to call you," Jade says. "...What are you doing?"

"Nepeta," the other girl says, pulling back. "The fearsome lioness does at times answer to the name of 'Nepeta.' You don't smell dangerous."

That sounds less like an admission and more like an accusation. How very strange and fascinating.

"I'm not dangerous!" Jade announces cheerfully. "Not to you, anyway, unless I need to be. I might be dangerous to some small animals, but if they didn't want to be hunted, they shouldn't have been small and tasty. Or they should have been more clever in evading me!"

She thinks, this time, Nepeta is genuinely smiling at her, even if the "fearsome lioness" doesn't realize as much.

"Spoken like a true huntress," Nepeta says. "Just this once, purrhaps, I can spare a little prey-girl for her trespasses. You have a very interesting scent, prey-girl Jade."

"Thank you!" Jade replies. "Can you let me up now?"

"First you tell me what you are doing here," Nepeta insists. "You don't smell like the humans who live on this island. And none of those humans would have been stupid enough to trespass onto my territory without first making an offering."

Jade makes a face at being called stupid, lips puckering in, before she has an idea. "If all you wanted was an offering, I can do that. I have some neat trinkets, and some really good jerky. Or I could finish hunting, and share half of the game with you!"

Jade feels Nepeta's irritation as much as seeing it, in the way her tuft-tipped tail resumes thrashing against Jade's leg, and in how her ears tilt in a disapproving cant. "I know you didn't come to this island just to hunt hopbeasts. Explain. And then we will hunt."

"I'm... Looking for someone," Jade says, feeling no need to lie. "I thought he might have come to this island. You haven't seen any other unfamiliar-smelling humans, have you? A human who smells like me?" 

"The mighty lioness has seen many sailors, scurrying over their twig-boats like ants," Nepeta says. "But she has seen no other prey-humans dumb enough to wander into the deepest parts of the jungle."

Jade deflates, going limp again under Nepeta's weight, which has already started to put her legs to sleep. For a moment there, she'd really thought she'd found a clue about her grandfather. If anyone on this island knew anything, it should have been the inhuman huntress, feline gatekeeper of the deeper jungle reaches.

"Now we hunt," Nepeta decides. She hops off Jade at last, crouching comfortably on all fours and taking a moment to preen herself with her claws. 

It's a "hurry it along" gesture, Jade can tell, even through the feline feigning at ultimate patience. 

"We worry about your lost human later," Nepeta continues, peering out from under her own paw. "Proper sustenance is impurrtant for planning." 

Jade rolls to her feet at last, having to shake the needles from her legs for a moment. For some reason, Nepeta's goal-oriented decisiveness makes her feel a bit better. She feels like she's accomplished something, and that coming to this island isn't just a means of chasing her tail. 

"Let's hunt." 

-

Nepeta marvels at the fire Jade builds in a way that makes it very obvious how little contact she's had with any humans on the island. She feigns indifference, but Jade can already see right through it. Nepeta is much less interested in Jade's determination to cook their meat, but she revels in how neat and small Jade can make the bloodied pieces she hacks off for Nepeta with her belt-knife. 

"It doesn't have the same flavor," she explains, ripping into one of her pieces with wicked teeth. She tears the meat more so than chews it, getting a piece in her mouth before swallowing it down. "Your meat is too brown and dead. It's hardly even meat any more!"

Jade only laughs, holding the makeshift skewer she'd fashioned between two hands and delicately biting off chunks with her own blunter teeth. They'll have to agree to disagree, because she doesn't like her dinner nearly as bloodied. 

"Tell me about the human you're looking for," Nepeta prompts, abruptly. "I want to help." 

Jade is quiet a long moment, busying herself with her dinner so it doesn't look so much like she's stalling. She should be delighted, to have help, and to perhaps be so much closer to a solid clue about her grandfather's whereabouts, if not to her grandfather himself. Instead, she feels more alone, afraid of what will happen when she finds the man who was always her only family. 

"He's my grandfather," she says. "My closest kin. He left to travel the world, and now I need to track him down."

Nepeta nods her head, a slight little bobbing motion that relies more on the attentive flick of her ears to convey that she's listening. "It's a trial-quest."

"A... What?" Jade prompts.

"It's like with kittens," Nepeta says. "Sooner or later, their mammas need to push them to fend for themselves. But once a kitten proves she can fight on her own, the young lioness can return to her kin. There's nothing more important than kin."

Jade can agree with that much. 

"Your grandfather-human will take you back," Nepeta continues. "You fight very fiercely. And I know someone who should be able to help you."

"Who is it?" Jade asks. "Where can I find them?"

"She's a witch," Nepeta says. "She lives deep in the labyrinth of caves under the island, where the cliffs meet the sea." 

"Can you take me there? You are offering to show me the way, right?"

Nepeta bristles, the fur around her throat prickling up and the tip of her tail starting to slowly thrash. "I don't like going there," she sniffs. "It's very damp. And cold. Too close to the water; it's a very nasty place." 

Jade stares back at her, intently, so certain in her eagerness that Nepeta will back down. If she hadn't intended to help Jade find the cave-witch, she wouldn't have mentioned the woman in the first place. 

"The compassionate lioness hopes her little prey-girl fully appreciates such a fearsome huntress venturing into the wet out of no more obligation than the kindness of her heart."

"The 'prey-girl' Jade appreciates it a lot! A whole, whole lot, because she doesn't think she'd be able to find the right cave without the brave lioness' help." 

Nepeta's fur all smooths down before Jade's eyes, and she busies herself rubbing the back of one paw before her mouth and not looking right at Jade. She looks helplessly flattered, and like she's trying so hard not to show it. It warms Jade up inside, brings a smile forth to tug at her lips. 

"Thank you," she adds. "It means a lot to me." 

Nepeta makes a sound in her throat, somewhere between a purr and a growl, which Jade takes to mean "don't mention it." They both resume eating their half-forgotten dinners. 

When they're finished, Jade banks the fire, wanting the comforting low glow of the embers and even the warmth, with how much cooler the jungle feels once the sun has gone down. Nepeta creeps around her while she does it, balancing lightly on paw-pads and with knees noticeably bent back in that reversed, feline way. She sticks her head over Jade's shoulder, watching. 

"What's that for?" she asks, clearly curious and just like a cat about it.

"It's warm," Jade says, holding her hands out over the lowered flames to demonstrate. "Not all of us are lucky enough to have a thick coat of fur like you do!"

Nepeta pauses to think about this, the bulk of her warm and solid against Jade's back where she's pressed up close. "The well-blessed lioness could be persuaded to share, if the poor, naked human-girl would only bother to ask. We can snuggle together like kits in a pile." 

Jade can hardly be bothered to say no. 

Nepeta is soft and warm, curled around her on a bed of leaves beside the fire. It's one of the most comfortable nights Jade can recall spending out in the wilderness, guarded over by a girl more ferocious than any animal who might have come sniffing around her campsite. 

-

The breeze off of the cliffs on the far side of the island is brisk and refreshing after a long day of hiking under the heavy heat of a tropical sun. Jade can smell the salt on the air, and feel the moisture on her skin. At places the rocks drop hundreds of feet down to rocky shores below, but at others they stretch up higher, breaking up the horizon with the spires of their crags. 

Nepeta curls up small on the rocks, sitting stiffly on her haunches and pulling her tail in around herself. She sniffs into the breeze, her fur starting to puff up everywhere Jade can see it. 

"It's wet even outside the caves," she complains, twitching her shoulders in irritation. 

"It's gorgeous," Jade only says, still staring out across the horizon, wide swathes of dark blue ocean rising to meet the brighter azure of the sky. 

It's the sort of view she and her grandfather always traveled to see. 

"To you, maybe," Nepeta sniffs. "To me that looks like one bad tumble and a lot of achy, soaking bones." 

Jade stops admiring the view, turning again to the side of the cliffs that rise higher still above their current vantage point. She can see the pits in them, little dips that might only be recesses into the rock, or which might be proper entrances into the tunnel system Nepeta mentioned to her. There are dozens of possible openings; she has no idea how she would navigate such an extensive network without any guidance. She'd be at it for weeks! 

"Where do we go in?" she asks. 

"I'll find you the right cave," Nepeta says. "But you owe me! I expect a very attentive grooming session after we find the witch. Your little fingers are purrfect for working out the tangles in matted fur." 

Jade laughs, and grins, reaching down to bury her hand deep in the mane of Nepeta's hair just at the back of her neck. She can feel the firm shapes of vertebrae under her fingers, firmly rubbing against those sharp points through the thick mass of Nepeta's fur. She feels it more so than hears it when Nepeta starts to purr. 

"Stop that," Nepeta protests, at some length. The words come out rumbly and indistinct, distorted by the vibrations her voicebox continues to make around them. "We have a witch to find."

"Of course!" Jade says, feigning like she wasn't doing it entirely on purpose.

Nepeta leads the way up the cliff face, her paws proving quite handy for grasping into small crevices in the rock, her claws powerful enough to punch new holes where none existed to begin with. Jade goes more carefully, always checking that any foothold or handhold will support her weight, and will be broad enough for her to get a firm grip with her smaller, more delicate hands. She's thankful to be the one following. Even with her greater versatility at climbing, the way Nepeta picks out seems to be the path of least resistance. They make good time. 

Jade can't help wondering what will happen, once they find the witch by the sea. Once she's beseeched the witch for whatever guidance she can offer, do they go their separate ways? 

She shouldn't be so fond of Nepeta, after only a few days of traveling and hunting with her. She shouldn't feel so endeared to the fearsome lioness, tireless huntress and dedicated lover of firm tummy scratches, not to mention incredibly comfortable pillow when Jade only has the option of sleeping on the hard ground. She likes the way Nepeta has of bumping her head against Jade's shoulder when she's making a joke, and has even grown fond of Nepeta's tendency to try and start grooming her, when they settle in for the night.

It's so easy to make Nepeta purr or laugh, with just the right touch to ears or stomach or neck, or with just a little joking around about what "the prey-girl" would like to do. 

"This one," Nepeta says, interrupting Jade's thoughts. "I can smell dried kelp and, mmn, herring, besides the salt of the seawater. This one is the cave!" 

Jade follows her inside, hunched halfway over to deal with the low slant of the cave's roof. It's gloomy inside, the light from the mouth only reaching so far. The tunnel worming into the rock is dim inside, but at least high enough for Jade to again walk upright. 

It's chill, and damp, and as the light diminishes and Jade's eyes adjust to the darkness as much as they're able, she can't help but feel some worry-excitement at descending into the bowels of the sea-witch's domain. 

-

When the tunnel starts to brighten, Jade thinks she's imagining it. 

They've walked for what must have been an hour, mostly in companionable silence. The tunnel curves and doubles back every so often, winding in strange, serpentine ways through the rock so that Jade is wondering just how far under the island they may have gotten. While the meandering curvature of the pathway and the lack of visibility help to leave Jade unpleasantly disoriented, she cannot deny that they are, at all times, headed gradually but steadily down. 

Nepeta keeps growling to herself, mostly under her breath, picking her feet up high from the stone on every step like a prancing horse. The ground is noticeably sticky with damp and goodness only knows what else; Jade doesn't blame Nepeta for grumping over walking through it on bare paw-pads. 

The way continues to brighten, and Jade realizes it's some kind of phosphorescent algae cropping up on the damp rock of the tunnel walls. 

"Disgusting," Nepeta sniffs, crowding even closer to Jade and away from the glowing rock-walls. 

"I think it's kind of pretty," Jade admits. 

She leaves her hand on Nepeta's shoulder, fingers curled into the other girl's soft (if increasingly damp) fur. She might not need to hold onto Nepeta for guidance any longer, with so many glowing points illuminating the gloom. But Nepeta's golden eyes are still warm, familiar beacons, and feeling the wound-taut muscle of her under Jade's palm is a steady comfort as they descend ever-further. 

The tunnel starts to widen, and with dramatic suddenness, Jade finds herself staring into a vast cavern nestled deep within the rock. 

The ceiling wheels high over her head, so lofty that she's sure she wouldn't be able to see the top of it, if not for the glowing algae that clings to every inch of it and casts the entire cavern into an eerie green-blue light. The densest mass of phosphorescence is at the very peak of the rock, hovering over them like a strange green sun and reflecting off of the still pool of black water collected under it like the surface of a mirror. 

The rock pathway they are on extends a ways out into the cavern, but past that point the dark water laps against it, only the slightest motions of waves revealing that a transition from rock to water has happened to occur. Beyond the narrow underground shore, the entire surface appears entirely placid and unbroken by any movement. The darkest point is at the center of the underground lake, where the dim illumination from the algae on the walls struggles the most to reach. 

"The witch is here," Nepeta says. 

Jade doesn't even think to question that knowledge. 

"How do we talk to her?" she wonders. "Do we need to swim out to her?" 

Nepeta's full-body shudder is better answer than any words she might have found. 

Better answer still is the way the water's surface begins to ripple and roil, transforming from a smooth plane to a bubbling cauldron. At the farthest edges of the cavern, Jade thinks she can make out shapes rising from the pool, writhing and rising to climb the smooth-worn rock of the cavern walls. The center of the underwater lake bulges and pulses, slick and sinuous tentacles breaking the surface and flowing outward. Within moments, the cavern is transformed from the site of an underwater lake to the cradle of some unspeakable many-limbed horror. 

The tentacles reach the shore at Jade's feet, the speed of their emergence propelling them out of the water and onto the rock, delicate sucker-covered tendrils curling in the moist air. From the mass, a solid shape starts to rise up just a few feet away. Nepeta is hissing so constantly Jade can feel it, her entire body tense under Jade's lingering palm. The central body of the creature is, for a moment, just an indistinct lump of soaked hair. Then she flips the entire mass of bedraggled wet tresses back in a wide sweep that splashes Jade and Nepeta both with seawater. 

Underneath the curtain of hair, there are clever bright-fuchsia eyes and seal-slippery silver-violet skin, the girl's face broken completely in two by a cheerful grin stuffed to bursting with pointed shark teeth. 

"Hello!" the sea-witch declares. "It's not often I get visitors. It's like there isn't anemoneone willing to come down here, I was getting seariously bored!"

She stretches her arms agilely over her head, starkly pale in the gloom like the underbelly of some deep-sea danger, bending in too many places. Jade can count the extra joints, knobbly angles of elbows that sharply contrast the smooth curves of the witch's violet-fuchsia flanks. 

"Whale?" the witch prompts. "Go on and introduce yourshellves! My first visitors in an age, and they're terribly rude." 

Jade swallows hard, caught between fascinated wonder and revulsion at that which she doesn't understand, and thrusts out her hand on reflex. "Jade Harley, at your service." 

The witch eels forward, her torso weaving side to side like she's swimming as the mass of her tentacles pushes her closer to Jade's hand. She bypasses it entirely, throwing her clammy, bony arms around Jade's shoulders and hugging her close, a few of her tentacles curling around Jade's hips to join in on the embrace. When she lets go, her tentacles remain, spread all around Jade's feet and rising up behind her to pen her in. Somehow, it feels more friendly than threatening. 

Nepeta hisses again, jumping back a few steps from the spread of the sea-witch's many limbs. "Watch where you're draping those things, would you?" 

"Oh, pardon me!" the witch laughs. Then she leans closer, already wide eyes going wider. "A little cat-girl, fintastic! I never would have expected one of your kind to come calling, this is an exciting day indeed! However did you get over your fear of the water?" 

"I didn't," Nepeta sniffs. "I came to protect Jade-kit."

"Protect?" the witch echoes. "I can't bereef you think I would hurt anemonebody. How rude!"

She rears back on her tentacles, rising higher over Jade and Nepeta and crossing her arms over her chest. They interlock messily, elbows pointing out in threatening display. She manages to pout, even through all the teeth. 

Jade reaches for Nepeta, torn between the urge to comfort and the pang of guilt at offending this person she's come to for help. She worms her fingers into Nepeta's hair, petting and scratching until some of the tension drains from the other girl's muscles, and offers the sea-witch her brightest appeasing smile. 

"I don't think you would hurt me!" she says. "I came here to see you, after all. I heard you know more than anybody about the waters around this island, and about anyone who comes to these shores carried by them."

"Of course I wouldn't," the witch agrees. It's still a bit sulkily, but she sinks back down, letting her arms drop to her sides and her tentacles droop back into still curls. "The ocean speaks to me, you know. She and I are old fronds, and there's more than a secret or two we share." 

She curves her body around Jade, leaning in to whisper conspiratorially, "Pike where a ship or two is sunk, with untold treasures still cradled in their hulls. They're good seacrets, the ones I know. I could share them with you, if that's what you desire. Untold opportunaties await, if you come diving with me." 

"N-No thanks," Jade stammers. There's something seductive about the way the sea-witch whispers, curled all around her and breathing promises in her ears, eyes bright with the temptation she offers. "That's not what I came here for."

"Good!" the witch says, pulling back again. "There's nofin I pike less than greedy gills who only visit me for my treasure. Anywaves, I'm Feferi. What was it I can do for you?" 

"I'm looking for my grandfather," Jade says. "He's an explorer sailing around the world, and I need to find him. I was hoping you would know if he's ever come to this island."

"If he has, I'll know it," Feferi declares. "And if he sails still on this ocean's waves, I can find him."

Jade can feel her eyes widening, can feel the hope rising to her face.

"For a price." 

Nepeta growls, low in her throat, and laughs. "But what price will that be? Everyone knows better than to get in debt to one of the Eldritch kind. What will you demand of her, sea-witch? Her heart? Her eyes? Or maybe just her liver, scooped out of her abdomen still-warm?" 

Jade cringes, and Feferi flinches visibly back. Her face flashes hurt, before transforming into a mask of righteous anger. Nepeta snarls at her, the sound ripping out of her like it was yanked by force, and Feferi laughs, high and triumphant and unkind. 

"You reely think the worst of me!" she scoffs. "I'm sure you can't kelp it, little lioness, but I would recommend not coming into the den of one of the Old Ones and throwing aboat insults. You may not like the shores you find yourself stranded on when the storm you call down happens to ebb!" 

She rounds on Jade, eyes fever-bright and fairly glowing, her tentacles rising in a wave to block Nepeta off. "The little lion-girl misleads you," she says. "I would not ask you to trade your life. If your grandfather is upon the waves, I will find him. The only gift I ask in exchange is for one solemn kiss." 

Jade can see the countless needle-points of Feferi's teeth as she speaks, can hear the edge of challenge in her voice. But she doesn't feel threatened, or in any way deceived. She sees a girl not so unlike herself, personable and lonely for all that her appearance is magnificent and terrible to behold. She sees curving magenta lips, that smile so quickly at the simple pleasure of visitors, that turn down just as abruptly when she's been disrespected or wronged. She sees a prideful woman, forced to a distance under the weight of too much knowledge and too many of other people's secrets. 

She shrugs her shoulders, smiles a little, and says, "Sure, that sounds like a fair trade to me." 

Nepeta grumbles, on the other side of Feferi, tail lashing so powerfully Jade can hear the sweep of the tuft against the cave wall. This isn't for Nepeta, though. Fond though she is of her fearsome lioness, this is for her grandfather, and for a lonely witch who has isolated herself too far for friends. 

Feferi slides forward, gracefully carried on a tide of tentacles, her arms cool and slick as they fold around Jade's shoulders. Her waist is unexpectedly satiny when Jade touches it, sliding her hands over Feferi's hips and up the unfamiliar expanse of her back. She leans in carefully, mindful of teeth, pressing just-parted lips to Feferi's wicked mouth. 

They fit together better than Jade might have expected. Feferi kisses her back gentle as rain, lips moving slowly in a patient give and take. She flows over Jade, a profusion of little kisses with no sign of teeth, playful like little waves lapping at her feet. The tip of her tongue traces against Jade's mouth, curling to tickle against her soft palate once she's slipped past Jade's parted lips, teasing Jade's tongue into rising to meet her. She tastes like sweet water, bubbling up from hidden places, smells like the electric air just before a thunderstorm. 

She's smiling when she pulls back, close-lipped and beneficent. 

Her many limbs pull back as well, much of her lower body receding back into the still underground pool. Nepeta trots forward, stiff and bandy-legged, curling around Jade's back and sticking her head under Jade's arm, butting her forehead against Jade's side in what Jade knows is a gesture of concern. Nepeta feels so warm after Feferi's ocean-coolness, her breath hot against Jade's stomach even through her shirt when she sniffs Jade secretively. 

"Your grandfather is a long ways from here," Feferi confides, quietly. "You'll need a boat, and quite a bit of guidance." 

Jade sighs, just breathes out all the tension she hadn't realized was building up inside her. Letting all of it go, supported by Nepeta's warm bulk against her side and Feferi's calm, straightforward words, she's aware the news isn't so much a revelation as a confirmation. 

"Are you going to guide me?" she asks. 

"I will," Feferi agrees. "You've paid my price." 

"You smell like low tide and moldering seaweed," Nepeta grumbles, from under Jade's arm. "She's going to keep you smelling like ocean refuse and sea-witch taint."

"That's not reely a very nice thing to say," Feferi chides. This time, she hardly sounds upset, like she can't quite gather the energy to be bothered with such a negative emotion. 

"What do I need to do?" Jade asks, ignoring both of them in their bickering. "If you're going to help me?" 

"I can bring you the boat," Feferi says. "Though you will have to provide the rations. Meet me by the beach at the lowest end of the cliffs in a day's time. I need that much just to see aboat the ship." 

Jade doesn't consider questioning her. There's a steady certainty to her, faithful as the ebb and flow of the tides, that she would feel disrespectful in doubting. This is a huge leap of progress in finding her grandfather, and she's going to seize it with both hands grasping shut. 

"We'll be there," Jade declares. 

Feferi only smiles, wide and knowing. "It'll do me good to get out of this cave! I'll see you both tomorrow, don't be late!" 

Her tentacles shoo them out, cheerfully ushering them along with little pokes and wriggles. Nepeta hisses in displeasure, but Jade only laughs. She shakes one of them goodbye, and strides back into the tunnel to the outside. 

-

When they emerge onto the cliffs, it's to the sight of the setting sun and brilliantly-painted sky. Nepeta butts her head against Jade so hard she almost tumbles to the sandy ground. She doesn't let up, rubbing and pushing, until Jade gives in and sinks to sit on the sand. Nepeta is instantly wound around her, torso curled into Jade's lap. 

"You smell like sea-witch," she complains, rubbing her face hard against Jade's stomach. 

"You probably smell like sea-witch too!" Jade jokes, trying to make light.

"Ugh, don't remind me," Nepeta protests. "I knew she could help you, but she's got such a pawful personality. She didn't even remember me, can you believe the nerve of her!" 

Jade is quiet for a moment, surprised to hear that Nepeta had met Feferi face to face before. Nepeta doesn't seem to mind, continuing to rub her face against Jade's torso, kneading against Jade's thigh with both her front paws. They're agitated motions, and also the most feline behavior of everything Jade has seen Nepeta do up until that point. She works her fingers into the back of Nepeta's hair, massaging at her neck and scalp until she starts to calm down. 

"She's going to take you away," Nepeta grumbles softly as she flops across Jade's thighs. "She's going to raise you a boat, some old galleon, and take you away." 

"Did you want me to stay?" Jade asks.

Nepeta looks up at her, eyes faintly narrowed, ears flicking in disbelief. "You're my human now," she says, as if this is obvious. "You can go away if you like, but what good am I if I let a sea-witch take you away?" 

Jade curls over, arms clamping around Nepeta and face shoving into her shoulder. She feels soft and warm, smells like sea salt and wood smoke and musk. And she vibrates under Jade's touch, buzzing with the reverberation from how she's purring deep in her throat. 

"I would miss you, if I left you behind," she says, into the thick tangle of Nepeta's hair. 

"You need to find your grandfather," Nepeta says. "He's kin." 

"You're kin, too. You just said so yourself." 

Nepeta laughs, a low rumble that merges with her purring, and rubs her cheek against Jade's face. "I'll come with you. To make sure that you're not lonely, and to make sure the sea-witch doesn't drown you." 

"You should call her Feferi," Jade chides. "It's rude. And I don't think she's going to drown me." 

"She might not," Nepeta concedes. "But she smells like rotting fish, and that's almost as bad." 

Jade is aware she's acquired herself a lapful of lion-girl, an arrangement that suits her fine until Nepeta props her paws on Jade's shoulders and knocks her onto her back. She only proceeds to rub her face into Jade's neck, ticklish and insistent. 

"I'll help you hunt," Nepeta promises. "And gather fruit so you'll have enough supplies. The sea-witch can catch you all the fish you'll ever need."

She licks the spot just under Jade's ear, tongue barbed just enough to feel strange and distracting. Jade laughs, surprised at the unfamiliar feeling. "I'll share you with her," Nepeta says, softly. "The mighty lioness is not so prideful as to be unable to share. So long as you try to smell like fresh fish, and not sea rot." 

"I can at least try," Jade says, laughing again. 

She pets down Nepeta's back, all along her spine, digging her fingers in hardest at the base of it and up at the nape of her neck. She finger-combs Nepeta's hair, working out all the tangles in her mane and fur just like she promised. Nepeta goes limp and boneless lying against her, purring softly and constantly the entire while. 

She kisses Jade's cheek, a brisk press of joyful lips, when they get up to forage dinner. 

-

They set sail on Feferi's galleon three days later, stocked with barrels of fresh water and fruit and all the supplies Jade managed to barter from villagers on the island. Much of the boat is still decayed from its time beneath the ocean waves, but Feferi magicked it sealed enough to sail, somehow. All of the decks are solid and the masts are sturdy, and their living quarters look fresh as the day they were furnished. 

Jade is fairly certain they won't be using the sails, anyway, not with Eldritch Ones enlisted to push them on their way. 

Nepeta doesn't fare so well her first days at sea, constantly hiding in her bunk and moaning about sickness. She has trouble picking her way across the deck, a fact that leaves her grumpy and snarling and determined to master her sea legs as quickly as possible. 

Feferi doesn't come aboard, lingering in the water and guiding them forward by unfathomable arcane means. Sometimes she emerges from the waves, curling all around the stern and bringing herself up to a level with the deck. Jade likes to lean on the railing and talk with her. 

"I still can't bereef Nepeta didn't recognize me!" Feferi laughs, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms in a prickly imitation of a sea urchin. "I was so impressed she reely wanted to get over her fear of water. I guess she has to do that now, hee! Betta late than never." 

"You shouldn't laugh at her," Jade admonishes. "She feels really sick right now!" 

"She'll recover," Feferi says, like it's a promise. "Lionesses are tough." 

Jade can't help but agree. 

She's decisively on her way to find her grandfather, absolutely certain she cannot fail. She has the best of kin helping her, and is positive she can get them liking each other properly with just a little time. When Grandpa Harley sees her, she hopes he'll be proud. 

-

-


End file.
